The online version of Savage Love has a letter you won’t find in the print edition, another contribution to the ongoing debate about earlabia that started in last week’s column, when Dan Savage lamented the questionable judgment of otherwise hot hipster boys who mutilate their ears with plugs. This week he hears from someone whose ears recovered after he removed the plugs, from a self-described hipster chick with an earlabia fetish (ewww), and from someone who’s seen what can happen:
Q You’re going to catch hell for your earlobe observation, but I have to add this: I worked with a young man who decided that gauging his earlobes to the max was a sexy thing to do. When the look got old, he took the plugs out. Because of the size of the plugs, the holes in his ears would not close. He had to have them surgically cut and stitched, which made his ears look somewhat deformed. The cost was $800, and it wasn’t covered by insurance. —Just Saying